As Ms Gillard starts what is shaping up to be her toughest week in Parliament, a review of opinion polls indicates that Mr Rudd’s three-stage siege on the Labor leadership has cost the party direct political support and could destroy it for a generation.

The review by Gillard supporters is of opinion polls before and after Mr Rudd’s two previous leadership tilts.

Its release represents a new stage in the internecine warfare between the current and former prime ministers as Labor MPs stare electoral annihilation in the face.

A senior minister has told Fairfax Media that the only certain effect of Mr Rudd’s “revenge mission” has been to send the ALP’s stocks into the basement, guaranteeing that Tony Abbott will be prime minister after the election.

The figures, based on the results of the monthly Fairfax-Nielsen poll, the fortnightly Newspoll, and others, show Labor’s standing with voters has headed south immediately following the last two raids on the top job by Mr Rudd and his backers.

Very smart work by the Gillard team to compile this. Yes Labour would be low in the polls even if Rudd’s supporters were not white-anting the Government, but his continual attcks (through proxies) on Gillard are what has driven the ALP to such a low level in the polls. Voters hate disunity.

The ALP Caucus should not reward him for his campaign.

The most recent Fairfax-Nielsen and Newspolls show Labor’s primary vote at 29 per cent and the gap widening between Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott in the preferred prime minister category.

On that poll, the ALP would win 42 seats and the Coalition 103.

Meanwhile, the Australian Services Union’s NSW secretary, Sally McManus, has confirmed that she sent an email to members asking their opinions on the Labor leadership.

“I’m not doing that in order to get any publicity about it,” Ms McManus said in a voicemail message to Fairfax Media.

“At the moment it’s between me and my members . . . Probably I’ll leave the poll open for a couple of days and after that be in a position to talk to people.”

Support from the unions is critical to Ms Gillard’s hold on power. Australian Workers’ Union boss Paul Howes in particular has backed the Prime Minister’s continuing leadership.

Isn’t it appalling outside groups get to determine who the Prime Minister and Labor Leader will be?

And NZ Labour is heading this way. In Australian Labor, the unions only have (great) influence. In NZ Labour they now get 20% of the vote.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 25th, 2013 at 7:00 am and is filed under International Politics.
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Rudd should be expelled from the party. The problem is the ALP cannot provide stable Government whatever happens with Rudd. He destabilises the party through nods and winks and then backs down in a cowardly fashion.

I follow Oz politics closely. Both Rudd and Gillard have nothing to be proud of. Gillard had a coup over Rudd so Rudd undercuts Gillard. A change to Rudd would give them a short bump in the polls until people started thinking- “my god what a mess” A bit like NZ in 1990 when Moore took over from Palmer
Labor in Australia has not had a great record,except for the Hawke years, Keating destabilized Hawke and now we have this happening. Gough Whitlam epitomises Labor in Australia, great rhetoric and poor governance.
What needs to happen is Gillard goes to the Sept 14 poll,gets a thrashing and has about 40 seats in the House. Gillard will resign after the election, Rudd will be mangled by the party and press and Bill Shorten will lead the rump of the ALP.
It will take two terms for Labor to recover,recover they will unless they don’t get rid of all these factions and the power of the unions.
Too many ALP reps have no history of working, rather become professional staffers/politicians. They need to have somebody come in who is respected by all factions of the party and the nation.

It’s certainly been a good year for the popcorn vendors in Aus. But how much of the Machiavellian manoeuvrings are really attributable to Rudd; Gillard has been such a dreadful performer in so many ways she has probably inspired people to want to find a way to replace her. And like it or not, the only Labor politician in Australia with any significant support from the public for now is Rudd, not Shorten, not anyone else, just Rudd. Why Rudd gets that support is a little unclear, and if the Liberals had the balls they could run a great campaign against him by simply quoting all the senior Labor Cabinet ministers published opinions of Rudd.

In some ways the worst things about this are that Gillard (if she remains as PM) gets to hang on until September with the support of the independents who are simply in it for the money; and that a significant portion of the Australian public can still support Gillard on the basis that Abbott is so much worse and apparently a dreadful misogynist. I spoke to an Australian who held this view and tried to find out just what made Abbott such a pariah with an (otherwise) intelligent woman, but all I could get was that in his early life or something he was really nasty to women, or something. Punched a wall or something, was rude to women, or something. And apparently one can be the leader with a female 2 i/c and a female COS plus be married with 2 daughters and still hate women….or something. So Gillard’s hate campaign has had some impact, propaganda works amongst those determined to believe.

Rudd is a showpony wannabe without any sense of strategic management, much as I hate to say it, given his convenient change of heart over marriage equality. He’s the “Mad Mike” populist of the ALP, or akin to the troglodyte Tories who seem to be forever trying to undermine David Cameron’s centrist moderniser Tories within the United Kingdom. Factionalism tends to be corrosive, whether centre-left or centre-right in orientation.

“Labor’s standing with voters has headed south immediately following the last two raids on the top job by Mr Rudd”

I’m more inclined to think the loss of support was because Gillard wasn’t toppled. This week will be make or break, and I expect the self-interest of the Labor MP’s is likely to be her downfall. With half of them expected to lose their seats under Gillard they’ll be more inclined to save their jobs than save Gillard.

I think it is stupid to suggest Rudd has ruined it for Gillard. The only reason Rudd has had any “oxygen” in the leadership issue is because Gillard and co had already fallen down in the polls so much through their own actions. Rudd has come in now and we’ve just seen the ALP pushed further down. But rot had well and truely set in before he hit the headlines again.